


tell me when it’s time

by middnighter



Category: Green Lantern (Comics), Green Lantern Corps (Comics), Guy Gardner: Warrior
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Trans Characters, Trans Guy Gardner, Trans Kyle Rayner
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-04-17 05:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14181963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middnighter/pseuds/middnighter
Summary: When he was a kid, when he didn't know he was a guy and he didn't know he was Guy, he had other things to think about than his soulmate.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for parental abuse, transphobia and misgendering.
> 
> Thanks to Zero for the beta and Emily for the cheerleading!

When he was a kid, when he didn't know he was a guy and he didn't know he was Guy, he had other things to think about than his soulmate.

Anything that was written on your skin would appear on your soulmate’s skin. It wasn’t as convenient as it sounded. Sometimes your soulmate spoke a different language. Sometimes you only got an answer later in life. Sometimes you never got an answer at all.

He was seven when he first wrote “Hi” on the back of his hand.

He didn’t get an answer. Unlike Mace, his older brother, who had been writing to his soulmate since before Guy was even born and frequently brought her home to dinner. Which made their dad very happy.

Guy was working hard to make Dad happy, and that was more important than worrying about his soulmate. He wrote in neat letters, doing the additions and subtractions faster, and learning poems by heart. But it didn’t work. It _never_ worked. His Dad was never happy with him, but that just meant Guy had to work harder.

And now his soulmate wasn’t talking to him. And even though it was common, having soulmates that didn’t answer, it didn’t prevent Dad from yanking at his hand, inspecting his arm to make sure that Guy wasn’t lying, and saying, “Figures.”

Guy’s wrist hurt.

That night, he worked extra hard on learning the name of all fifty states, and hoped the angry red nail marks on his hand would be gone by morning.

* * *

 The day words appeared on his skin, Guy was thirteen, and still had no idea who he was.

But that would come later. He had other things to worry about at the moment, like coming home without breaking his science project.

He had spent extra hours working on the carefully built electrical assembly, and as a result he received the best mark out of all his class. Surely that would make Dad see that Guy wasn’t worthless. Maybe he would look at him with pride —a sentiment that was usually only extended to Mace.

And when the words appeared, it was the cherry on top.

_Hello. How are you?_

A simple greeting, signed with a name. The block letters were wobbly, but that didn’t matter. His soulmate was talking to him, and if that didn’t make Dad proud of him too, then nothing would.

He walked faster, so he could answer to his soulmate once he got home, so he could show Dad the words. He wasn’t running —he didn’t want to risk stumbling and dropping his science project. He’d worked much too hard on it, and if he broke it all his efforts would have been for nothing. He was so proud of himself for building it on his own. It would look nice on his shelf, next to his collection of General Glory comic books.

“Mom! Dad!” he said, pushing the door open with his elbow. “Dad! I gotta show you something!”

His dad was in the living room, slumped on a chair behind the table. Surrounding  was a collection of empty bottles, which was never a good thing.

“What are you doing, making all that racket and slamming the damn door?” Dad slurred, throwing his hand in Guy’s direction, hitting him in the arm.

The hit made Guy stumble back and drop the assembly. It fell on the ground and fell apart, the circuitry shattering.

“I… I didn’t mean to…” A confusedly sorry expression flutters on Dad’s face, quickly turning into anger.

“Dad…?”

“Clumsy kid!” He struck Guy across the face, hand slapping his cheek. “That was your fault! Always dropping stuff, you pansy!”

Guy raised his arms in front of his face, as a vain attempt to protect himself, as his dad hit him again. He squeezed his eyes shut, but that didn’t prevent tears from running down his face.

“Stupid, stupid kid!”

He didn’t understand. It wasn’t unusual for his dad to hit him, but Guy always had some kind of responsibility. Maybe he let the dinner burn in the oven, or maybe his grades weren’t as good as Mace’s were when he was his age. It always was his fault, somehow.

But that day, everything had been perfect. He’d brought home a top grade and a message from his soulmate, and his dad was the one who broke his science project. He didn’t see how any blame could possibly be put on him.

And his dad was hitting him anyway.

His mother turned the sound of the TV up.

* * *

 His science project was shoved in the trashcan, and Guy was smothering his sobs in his pillow, blanket wrapped around him like a useless armor shielding him from the fake monsters under his bed, while the real ones sat on the couch watching TV downstairs.

His eyes burned  and his throat was sore, but not as much as his arms and his back.

It wasn’t his fault. It _wasn’t_ his fault.

It wasn’t his fault that his parents treated him that way.

He didn’t deserve the beating he got tonight. Maybe he’d never deserved any of them.

It was a hard thing to face. If he didn’t deserve the punishment, if the punishment wasn’t fair, then it meant that there was nothing he could do to make his situation better. Nothing he could do to make his dad proud.

Not studying harder. Not behaving better. Nothing. Nothing he could ever do would be enough. There was no getting better, no escape.

And that terrified him.

He was still crying when he fell asleep.

* * *

 Guy was sixteen, and driving a stolen pink convertible.

It was the middle of the afternoon and he should have been in school. Instead, he was speeding down the highway, cigarette hanging from his lips and his hair pulled back in a ponytail as a cop car chased after him.

He could never win, and Mace could never lose, so there was no point trying to live up to his image. Mace was his parents’ perfect son, and Guy was sick of trying to be their perfect daughter, since it obviously didn't work.

He hadn't realized yet that he wasn't their daughter at all. Reflecting upon that later, Guy would come to think that if he had figured it out earlier, he wouldn't have been as reckless.It would have saved him from a lot of the trouble he’d let himself fall into.

But he hadn’t discovered any of that yet.

So if he could never be as good as Mace, he had to become the opposite. Mace had perfect grades? Guy stopped trying at all in school. He’d dropped out _weeks_ ago.

Mace was in a steady relationship with his soulmate? Guy had never written back to his. He didn't even remember their name.

Mace was well on his way to become a renowned cop? Guy was, well, stealing cars, smoking, and fleeing  from the law.

And he couldn't give less of a shit about it.

* * *

 Guy turned eighteen a week ago.

His soulmate stopped writing to him after a few weeks without getting an answer, but they’d begun drawing on their —and therefore his— left arm, and the doodles showed up on Guy's skin.

It was cute. Guy Gardner, however, didn't do cute.

He currently had his hands deep under the hood of a car, and was only moments away from hijacking it, when flashlights turned on behind him.

“Step away from the car.”

Shit.

Guy slowly turned around, his hands above his head. “Hey, I just lost my keys in the ignition,” he said with all the confidence he had.

But on this night, that flimsy excuse wasn't going to be enough.

“Yeah yeah, and you're late to getting to the hospital to visit your sick auntie,” one of them humored him.

“Hey, I know this punk,” the other one said, walking closing to Guy and shoving the light of his torch in his face. “Mace’s younger sister. You know, the big red-headed cop by the three-four.”

Guy winced. He hated being called Mace’s anything.

The cops took him in their car, and Guy knew the drill. He had been caught a few times before. He would stay in juvie hall for a moment, then he would be back on the streets.

Well, that was what would have happened a week ago. Now, he was eighteen and legally an adult, and would be tried as an adult. He would see the inside of city jail.

But the car didn't stop at the precinct.

“Hey, what's going on? This is Scott Key High’s football field,” Guy said, because it was. Even at night, even given the short amount of time he spent in high school, he was still able to recognize it.

The very same field where Mace, football star, high school jock, everyone’s dream date, lead his team to victory so many times.

“You're a quick study, kid,” said one of the cops, shoving him out of the car.

The handcuffs were still on his wrists, and Guy fell to his knees on the grass, unable to maintain his balance. “You're letting me go? What's the deal?”

“No deals, punk.”

“We're just handling this off the clock.”

And they stepped back into the car, and left.

Guy was confused for a moment. What the fuck did they have planned for him?

“You screwed up one too many times,” he heard a familiar voice saying.

“Who… Mace?”

His brother was towering him, his police uniform all buttoned up, his curly red hair fitting neatly under under his cap, and he looked more contemptuous than ever.

“Yes, it's me, little sister.”

Guy rolled his eyes at that. He _hated_ being called that.

“You're in the big leagues now, an adult,” Mace continued. “You do the crime, you pay in adult time from now on.”

“Why do you care?” Guy spat, trying to stand up. Mace had never done anything for him, he had always let Guy take all his father's wrath upon himself, he never interfered even when he saw the bruises on his body, why would things have changed now?

Mace tackled him to the ground, and Guy fell on his side, trying to catch his breath.

“You’re not gonna make Mom and Dad ashamed of you. You’re going to straighten out. Get a job.”

“Or what? You gonna tell Dad? Let him beat the daylights outta me? Or maybe you want to do it yourself.”

“I’m gonna have them take you to city jail. And they’re gonna throw you in a cell with the rest of the animals.” Mace’s tone was deadpan. “One night in there is gonna make one of Dad’s hittings seem like dinner and a movie.”

Mace grabbed him by his ponytail, yanking Guy up to his feet. “Ow!”

“Now, straighten up,” Mace said, unlocking the handcuffs with the hand that wasn’t holding Guy by his hair. “You got a second chance. This is the last time I look out for you.”

“Tomorrow you get some nice clothes and you start filling out applications,” Mace continued, shoving a roll of dollar bills in Guy’s hand. “Here’s sixty bucks. It’s a loan, okay?”

Guy stared at the money.

“And get your butt home. Ma worries,” Mace said, walking away.

Guy watched Mace leave in his car, and sat down on the grass, shaken from the encounter. He never expected to get any kind of intervention, and not by Mace, of all people.

He couldn’t understand why his brother decided to do that. It couldn’t be that Mace cared about him. If he did, he would have said something, prevented —or at least _tried_ to prevent— their dad from hitting him, when Guy was twelve and unable to do anything except grin and bear it. Why get involved now that Guy was legally an adult and actually capable of taking care of himself?

Who gave a shit if he was on a bad path? At least now, when he got in trouble, it was for things he actually did wrong. It was on his own terms.

Mace didn’t give a shit about him, he never had. He was only doing this to save face in front of his police friends. He didn’t actually _care_. Guy didn’t owe him shit, let alone to live a good life just so Mace wouldn’t have to bow his head in shame when asked about his family.

Guy gave out a sigh and laid down. His ponytail made  resting his head on the ground pretty uncomfortable, so he untied his hair. He was going to get dirt all over his clothes, but he didn’t really care. He was wearing his good jeans, bought in the men’s section for their huge pockets, and those pants wouldn’t fail him even if he had to crawl out of Hell in them, so a little mud was nothing to be scared of.

When Mace told him get nice clothes, he was probably referring to a nice little dress that would replace his jeans. The kind of dress that would make a good impression, get him hired more easily. Guy never really liked wearing that kind of thing. When he was younger and occasionally wore a dress or a skirt, it was never comfortable, it always felt slightly off somehow. He was never able to pinpoint why.

He never got around to wearing make-up either; it always managed to make him look like a clown. It was a skill he had no interest in learning. Hijacking cars and punching his way out of trouble, that was more his style. People never expected him to be a good fighter.

So he wasn’t going to buy nice clothes, at least not by Mace’s standards. Maybe he would throw the money into something dumb instead, like cigarettes. He could buy at least ten packs with what Mace gave him.

Ma worried? Good. She should have started worrying ten years ago.

Guy slipped the money in his pockets and covered his face with his hands. Nothing good would get out of that genius plan. He couldn’t change the past, and no matter how much trouble he got into, nothing could retroactively make his parents feel bad for treating him like shit.

He was already the family disappointment. Throwing his life away and ending up behind bars would only reinforce what they saw for his future. Destined for a life in prison.

It suddenly seemed extremely stupid. Turning out exactly how his dad thought he would was not a good revenge.

A good revenge would be to prove them wrong. To manage to get his life straight, to prevail against everything they expected of him.

Tonight’s intervention was probably the only nice thing Mace had ever done for him. It would be dumb to turn it away out of misplaced pride.

He stood up and walked out of the football field, taking the money out of his pocket and counting the bills, setting some aside for a motel room where he could spend the night instead of sleeping in the back of a stranger’s car.

He would think about what to do with the rest of the money tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

Guy actually followed Mace’s advice.

He got a job in a fast-food restaurant, then in a retail store. He got enough money to pay Mace back and rent his own place —a tiny, crappy flat that felt more like home than his parents’ house ever did.

He still saw them sometimes when they had him over for lunch, but even then it was still all about Mace, who was receiving all the praise for single-handedly bringing Guy back on the right track.

Whatever. He was over that now.

He used the visits home to get his stuff out of his bedroom. There weren’t a lot of things he cared for, really, it was mostly to get his General Glory comic books out of his parents’ hands. His collection was the only thing that managed to bring him a little joy throughout his childhood. It would be a shame to let it rot on a shelf in a house he hated.

When he wasn’t working, he was studying. He spent most of his free time in the library, catching up on everything he’d missed while he was busy playing the criminal mastermind. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort, but by the end of spring he managed to earn his high school equivalency diploma and applied to about every college on the East Coast.

Michigan University offered him a scholarship for a degree in psychology and education, and he accepted it.

* * *

Life in college was nothing like Guy’s childhood in Baltimore.

He met lot of people, different from his previous crowd. A couple of years prior, he would have made fun of this bunch of nerds, worried about getting good grades and whatnot. But then a couple of years ago, he was stealing cars for a living and for fun. He wasn’t like that anymore.

It was quite liberating, to learn in his various education and psychology classes that the way he was raised was incredibly damaging, and to learn how to actually raise children right. He couldn't adopt every abused kid on the planet, but as a teacher, as a counselor, he would be able make a difference. That way fewer children would have to go through what he endured.

He didn't agree with everything, especially concerning Freud. There was something about Freud’s theories that really rubbed him the wrong way. The man’s writing style was extremely dense and hard to understand, and what Guy did understand made him wish he couldn't read.

The way that man excused the abuse of women and children because “ _well you see children are sexually attracted to their parents at one stage of their lives so the blame is on them and not the men who take advantage of them”_ profoundly disgusted Guy. Thankfully, his teacher also explained to their class that no one had been able to replicate the results of his experiments and the whole thing had hardly any scientific substantiation.

Of course, there were always people who defended Freud’s vision, and Guy was always more than happy to argue with them. It was a productive way to channel his anger.

And when arguments weren’t enough to get rid of his resentment, he took it to the rugby field.

* * *

When Guy learned that transgender people existed, it was almost by mistake.

He was using one of the computers of the library to do research for one his classes, and one website to another led him to articles about it.

His research paper forgotten, he spent hours on Wikipedia pages, blog posts, forum threads, learning about a dozen new words, and overall discovering a world that he had no idea existed outside of bad comedy on TV and jokes from that one drunk dude at parties thinking he was funny.

Guy was fascinated. But he didn’t connect the dots just yet.

No, he was just curious, that was all.

He was so absorbed the librarian had to tap him on the shoulder to inform him that the place was closing.

* * *

The pieces finally clicked together a few weeks later, when Guy was discussing the upcoming Halloween party with one of his classmates.

“I think I’m gonna dress up as Ernie, from the General Glory comic books,” Guy explained to Sydney.

“What, like a sexy Ernie costume? I don't know if they sell those.”

“No, like regular Ernie.” Picturing a character who was his favorite since he was eight years old with fishnets and a cleavage was not something Guy especially liked.

“Why would you pick that? Why not another character?”

“Well, I already have a pair of boots that work for him, I only need the rest of the outfit. I could have picked the General himself, but —”

“No, I mean, why a boy? Why not a girl?”

“Because… because if I can choose who I am, then…”

Then I want to be a man.

Oh.

_Oh._

* * *

Guy gave himself a week to think it over.

And each day that went by, he grew more sure of himself. He was a man. It _fit_ in a way nothing else had before.

It was such a relief, having the words to make sense of how he had been feeling his entire life, but was never quite able to explain.

He instructed the hairdresser to give him Ernie’s bowlcut, and seeing all of these locks of orange hair cut off on the floor made him feel like he was putting down a too-heavy backpack he’d been carrying since he was a kid. It felt like he was breathing freely for the first time.

It felt right.

* * *

Guy met Balt and Trish at the Gay-Straight Alliance of the university campus. They were trans, just like him, and were currently helping him find a name. It was proving to be harder than expected.

“What about ‘Colin’?” Trish said, browsing through a baby names book, resting her head on her hand.

“No, I don’t like that one.”

“‘Elias’?”

“No.”

“‘Frederick’?” Balt suggested from behind his computer.

“No, I don’t wanna be called Fred. I don’t look like a Fred. Do _you_ think I look like a Fred?”

Balt looked at him up and down. “You definitely don’t,” he said once his inspection was done.

“What if I end up looking like a Fred after I start testosterone?”

“You won’t,” Balt said on a light tone. “T won’t shapeshift you into something you’re not.”

“That’s good to hear,” Guy said. He rubbed his temples with the tip of his fingers. “This is so hard, I feel like we’ve been at it for hours.”

“We have,” Trish said after looking at her watch. “But don’t sweat it, it took me a few months to find the right name.”

“I know, but I wish it was faster. Not having a name is weird.”

“It’s true that you can’t stay ‘that guy with the bowlcut’ forever,” she said. “I mean, it’s fine as a contact name on my phone, but that won’t look good on your ID.”

“Yeah,” Balt added. “And what if you change your haircut?”

“Then I’ll just be ‘that guy’,” Guy said.

“I know we’re joking here,” Trish said, “but ‘Guy’ is actually a name. If you want, you can absolutely be ‘that Guy’.”

Guy stared at her in awe. “Trish, you’re a genius. ‘Guy Gardner’.” He let the name —his name—  roll off his tongue, familiarizing himself with it. “I love it. It sounds amazing.”

“Guy it is then,” she said, taking her phone out of her pocket. “What about a middle name?”

“I think I’ll go with ‘Ernie’.”

* * *

It was late, and Guy should probably be in bed. He had early classes tomorrow.

Instead, he was behind his desk, a pen in his hand, his trash can overflowing with crumpled paper.

His relationship with his family hadn’t gotten any better since he started college. He used the distance as an excuse not to visit them anymore, and it was for the best. Guy was better off now that he had stopped trying to impress his parents or piss them off. They weren’t the center of his life anymore.

But he needed them to know that they had two sons.

And there was no way in Hell he was going to drive all the way to Baltimore to have that conversation. No way he was going to have that conversation at all.

So he settled on a letter.

It was the hardest thing he ever had to write —and that was counting that one paper he had to do on Freud’s penis envy theory.

Guy had never been good at baring his heart, and it wasn’t something that his parents deserved anyway. But he still needed to do it. He needed them to know.

The first draft had been three pages long, handwritten Trans 101 section, complete with little diagrams in the margins. The second draft was a list of every little sign he had shown of being trans when he was a kid, and how they only now made sense to him. The third one was a desperate plea for their love and support —and that was just pathetic.

The fourth draft would have to do. He wasn’t perfectly happy with it, but he was feeling like his head was going to explode any moment, and he didn’t want to spend too much time on a coming out his parents wouldn’t even accept anyway.

It was short, matter-of-fact. An announcement, not a invitation to change his mind.

He signed _Your youngest child, your second son, Guy Gardner_ at the bottom of the page.

* * *

His parents didn’t write back. They stopped giving him phone calls. Which wasn’t a big loss overall, he had only wanted them to know. He knew perfectly well he was never going to win them over.

He did get a few texts from Mace. 

**Mace:** what the fuck is wrong with you?  
  
**Mace:** you’ll always be my little sister you can’t change that

Guy blocked his number.

* * *

Guy was stomping out of an appointment with his psychiatrist, and he didn’t wait to be out of the building to take his phone out of his pocket and dial Balt’s number.

Balt picked up as Guy elbowed the door open. “Hey dude, what’s up?”

“My shrink said no for HRT.” He could barely contain how pissed he was.

“What? Why?”

“Apparently, he’s not sure that I’m really trans, because when he asked about my childhood I didn’t say nothing about playing with little trucks instead of dolls and shit. And since I’m not straight and I don’t want every surgery on the fucking planet, it’s strike three and he needs, like, ten more sessions before giving me the letter, to be sure that I’m not just a confused girl.”

He could almost hear Balt’s eyeroll on the other end of the line. “Well, that’s stupid.”

“Right? I’m finding another psychiatrist. I need to start T now. You know dysphoria has been kicking my ass these past months, I don’t know how much more I can take. I’ve waited enough.”

“I’ll give you my therapist’s address, she’s good.”

“Thanks, I owe you one.”

“But keep in mind to ‘masc’ it up, you know? Make shit up, talk about how you always knew you were a boy, have dreams of becoming a football star or something. Only bring up very stereotypical masculine things. Channel your inner jock and let him do the talking. Shouldn’t be too hard for you, right?”

Guy scoffed. “Piece of cake.”

* * *

The end of the year went by much too fast, and soon everyone was spending practically _living_ at the library, preparing for finals.

Guy wasn’t too worried. He had plenty of time to study, now that he left the women’s rugby team —maybe he would try out for the football team next year. He would have to fight for it twice as hard as the other men, but that kind of thing had never stopped him.

He was at Trish’s place, helping her rehearse the oral presentation she had to do for her English final. She was still anxious about it, even though they went through pretty much everything, and as far as Guy knew, she would do perfectly fine.

So Guy offered to spend the rest of the evening watching Star Trek, to get her to relax.

They were a few episodes in when Guy removed his sweater, which bared his arms and the drawings on them. A detailed eye was on the inside of his wrist, the eyebrow bordering on the heel of his hand, and the rest of his forearm was covered with intricate abstract lines, all in blue ink, like from a high schooler’s pen.

“Did you draw that?” Trish asked, her eyes wide with wonder. “It looks amazing.”

“No,” Guy said. “My soulmate did.”

That night when his Dad broke both his science project and something inside of him that he hadn’t been able to fix, Guy gave up on a lot of things. School, staying out of trouble, and soulmates. And even if Mace had talked him into changing his mind about the first two, the latter had never come up and he’d never quite gotten rid of the habit of ignoring his soulmate.

His soulmate wasn’t writing to him anymore. When words appeared on his skin, they were only reminders, like _J-3 before holidays_ and _ask mom about the book_. That didn’t happen often. Most of the time, his soulmate was drawing on their arm, and Guy watched as it turn from stick figures to doodles through the years.

It didn’t call for an answer, and Guy never gave it a second though.

“You talk to your soulmate?” Trish was smiling bright. She loved hearing about soulmates —which was why Guy had never mentioned his. “Tell me everything.”

“There’s not much to tell,” Guy said, crossing his arms. “I don’t talk to them, they just… draw sometimes.”

“What? You can at least tell me their name. Is it someone I know?”

“I don’t know their name. They told me when I was like, twelve, and I forgot about it. I never wrote back to them.”

Trish gave him a look. “You’re telling me you have been ignoring your soulmate all this time? Do you know what I would give for mine to answer my messages?”

Guy scratched the back of his neck. “Well…” It felt pretty dumb now that he was thinking about it.

“Write to them. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Trish could be as stubborn as him, and there was nothing Guy had to answer to that, except “Okay, okay, I’ll do it. Fine.”

“Text me when you do. I wanna know everything.” 

* * *

**Guy** : they aren’t gonna answer  
  
**Trish** : what?  
  
**Guy** : my soulmate  
  
**Guy** : i wrote to them and they aren’t answering  
  
**Trish** : give them some time, maybe they haven’t seen your message yet  
  
**Guy** : they’re seen it alright, they have drawn over it  
  
**Guy** : that’s their answer, another anime eye  
  
**Trish** : that’s weird  
  
**Guy** : tell me about it  
  
**Trish** : what did you write??  
  
**Guy** : “Hello, I’m Guy, sorry for not writing sooner”  
  
**Trish** : i don’t see why they wouldn’t answer to that  
  
**Trish** : maybe they don’t understand english?  
  
**Guy** : they do, they write memos on their hand sometimes  
  
**Trish** : well maybe there is something wrong with the bond?  
  
**Guy** : or maybe they’re just pissed that i ignored them all these years and are ignoring me in retaliation  
  
**Trish** : i doubt it. there is surely something else  
  
**Guy** : whatever

* * *

Guy didn’t write to his soulmate again. He didn’t see the point, they seemed to be doing pretty fine on their own, and if they didn’t want to talk to Guy? That was fine. He could deal with it. He had other things to worry about.

He made the football team and even became one of their best players. It astonished some of his transphobic teammates, who had expected to see Guy do worse than them because they were cis men and Guy was not. But as the season went on, Guy earned his place among them, even if he had to fight some of them for it.

Their team went pretty far, and even made it to the finals until he twisted his knee and had to quit. It was hard, going through the last part of the term without having football as an outlet.

But life went on. He graduated. He moved to California. He worked first as a counselor for prison inmates, helping them in their rehabilitation, but seeing the unfairness they faced brought up an angry, aggressive side of him. After catching himself snarling curses under his breath after a particularly hard day of work, just like his father did when he was mad at him, Guy decided it was time to look into another career path.

He didn’t have to move across the country this time around and was hired as an elementary school gym teacher. He loved his new job, and working with the kids brought him a sense of peace and happiness he never reached before. It was like nothing could disturb that newfound fulfillment.

Until the phone call.

One evening, Guy was researching new games for his students to play when his phone rang.

It was his mom’s number.

Guy stared at the screen for a moment, numb. All the barriers and self confidence he had worked so hard for came crumbling down as he saw the string of numbers lighting up his phone. When he picked up the phone, he was back to being that scared little kid he used to be.

“Hello?” he said, suddenly very aware of how low his voice was, how different it was from the last time he talked to his mom all these years ago.

“Hello, I want to talk to my daughter.”

“It’s me,” Guy said.

“Are you her boyfriend? Is this one of her pranks?”

“It’s me, Ma,” he repeated.

“Now is really not a good time for jokes. Put my daughter on the phone, please.”

His voice was stuck in his throat. He couldn’t get any words past his lips.

“She wants to play this game? Alright, _fine_. Tell her that her dad is very sick. Liver failure. That he’s been asking for her. He wants to apologize and he doesn’t have very long left. Tell her to call and I’ll give her the address of the hospital.”

And his mom hung up.

Guy stumbled to the couch and let himself fall on it, dropping his phone.

* * *

Guy was sitting in a bar, slumped on a stool, his phone burning a hole in his pocket. He was supposed to watch the game tonight, and instead he couldn’t get his dad out of his mind. He hated the hold his family still had over him. He hated how weak it made him feel, how years of carefully-built defenses got blown away with one little phone call. He was supposed to be better than this. He took out his phone and stared at it, eyebrows furrowed.

A voice snapped him out of his sulking. “Hey,” a man said from behind him. “How you doin’? Buy you a drink?”

Guy almost flinched, dropping his phone on the counter, next to his glass of beer. The voice was obviously flirtatious, and Guy had no idea how to handle being hit on by men in public. Not that he didn’t like men, that was never the issue there. Being hit on by straight men thinking he was a girl, was what the issue was. It didn’t happen as much as it used to, since he was further along his transition —his voice was lower and his jawline sharper, and usually people corrected themselves after hearing him talk. But sometimes when people saw him from behind, or when his t-shirts clung a little but too close to the bump on his chest that his binder couldn’t completely make disappear, people _assumed_. Which lead to all kinds of awkward interactions.

Did he not pass well enough today? Guy hated his hips and his shoulders and his neck— and he needed to give that guy an answer.

Any other day, he would have figured out something better than clearing his throat to make his voice as deep as possible and saying, “Thanks, I’m straight,” in a vaguely offended voice. But it was what he ended up doing, because playing the stereotypical, overcompensating frat boy always worked in getting him out of being misgendered. He even raised his eyebrow and muttered “California” under his breath, for good measure.

The man —that Guy mentally dubbed Blondie for his blonde hair that looked straight out of a shampoo ad— raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Oh, me too, me too,” he said, and sat down next to him. “You, uh, in town for the game?”

Guy let out the breath he was holding. “Yeah. You?”

“Couldn’t get a ticket.”

The conversation then revolved around football, about how they both used to play little league, and it was a very welcome distraction from Guy’s worries.

Blondie seemed to have picked up on his nervousness anyway, because his gaze got softer. “Who are you thinking about calling?” he asked.

“Calling? What are you talking about?” Guy said, because talking about his problems with some random guy he just met at a bar was just pathetic.

“You keep looking over at your cell phone. Either you’re waiting for it to ring or you’ve got something on your mind.”

Blondie was perceptive, Guy had to give him that. He sighed. What did he have to lose, anyway? It wasn’t like he was going to see him again. “Another round for me and whatever he’s having,” he told the bartender. “You have much of a family?” he asked Blondie.

“Not anymore. I lost my sister a while back and I haven’t seen my parents in… years. How about you?”

“Got a brother I don’t care much for. A mother I feel about the same with.”

“Father?”

Guy took a sip of his beer. “He’s dying. And not a moment too soon for me. He drank a lot. I put myself between him and my mom. Played punching bag. For too long. Until I left and never looked back. Now the old man’s dying of liver failure. And he’s begging me to come back to Baltimore and see him before he goes, which could be any day. He wants to tell me he’s sorry or some crap.”

It felt kind of silly saying it out loud, like the answer should be an easy _don’t go, he can go fuck himself_. And yes, that was true, but there was a part of him that still wanted his father to see the man he had become. The eleven-year-old boy eager to please his dad was still around somewhere. He didn’t say anything about that, of course, because he was not very keen on coming out to a stranger in the middle of a bar, of all places.

Blondie took a breath in. “Y’know, I never even told Ted this…”

“Who?”

“A friend.” And from the look on Blondie’s face, Guy knew he wasn’t the only one hiding things. “My dad was a crook. A gambler. I threw away a lot of things trying to help him. To make him accept me. Ultimately, I had to learn to accept myself. _My_ dad never asked to see me. To tell you the truth, I wish he had. Nobody ever regretted having a chance to say goodbye.”

Maybe Blondie was right. But if Guy was doing this, it would be for his sake, not his dad’s, not his mom’s, not Mace’s. He wasn’t going to forgive anyone. But he could maybe get some sense of closure. He could finally put his childhood behind him.

Guy grabbed his phone, stood up and handed Blondie his ticket. “Enjoy the game.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DC has retconned Guy's middle name once and so can I. The next chapter will get into the Green Lantern stuff. Let me know what you think!


End file.
